Only Norway, Switzerland and Greece recorded increases – at 2.5%, 0.6% and 7.4% respectively – while expenditures declined in all other countries in the region, including the UK where Nielsen reported a 2.3% dip on H1 2012.

Overall adspend declined by 6% in Europe, amid ongoing concerns about its fiscal situation, and contrasted starkly with the 13.1% growth recorded in Latin America.

Argentina contributed significantly to the region's expenditure of $13.5bn after posting almost 30% growth.

Indonesia, China and the Philippines also recorded double-digit growth in the Asia-Pacific region, which grew overall by 6.4% to $51bn.

In other markets, MENA and North America reported 3.9% and 2.7% growth respectively.

Nielsen also found that global adspend increased 3.5% in the second quarter of 2013, which would seem to reinforce recent findings from media agency ZenithOptimedia.

Its Advertising Expenditure Forecasts survey, as reported on MediaPost, also forecast global growth of 3.5% in 2013, rising to 5.1% in 2014 and 5.9% in 2015 on the back of improvements to the European economy.

Despite rapid growth from emerging markets, ZenithOptimedia also expected the US to contribute 28% of the $74bn addition to global adspend from 2012 to 2015.